Poetry for a World on Fire: an Interview With Aja Monet

Aja Monet by Fanny Chu.

“Who’s got time for poems when the world’s on fire?” asks Aja Monet in the heart-achingly beautiful and gut-wrenchingly honest ‘For Sonia.’ Her answer, it becomes clear, is that it is precisely when the world’s on fire that the movement, such as it is, needs the nourishment and meaning and soul that poetry provides more than ever. But Monet will not offer words to comfort and soothe at the expense of truth. “These days it hurts to write,” the track continues, “Every...